


With Interest

by revise_leviathan



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Canon - Manga, Gen, mostly gen but the ship kicks down the door at the end, spoilers up to chapter six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revise_leviathan/pseuds/revise_leviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shun repays a debt owed to Yuya at a little higher value than he intended. Yuya takes an interest, and brings him back to his hideout. Yuto, meanwhile, is just trying to make sure Yuya doesn't get them all captured, but finds in the process that Shun's not exactly the vampiric figure he compared him to the first time they "met". It might help things if "the Phantom" would stay as one or the other personality for more than a fleeting handful of minutes, though.</p>
<p>Based on the ARC-V manga, intended to be set after chapter six.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Interest

**Author's Note:**

> [I HATE THE MANGA FOR MAKING ME SHIP SPARROWSHIPPING G OD](http://reviseleviathan.tumblr.com/post/137606290193/arc-v-manga-no-youre-not-allowed-to-have-shun)
> 
>  
> 
> I have this sneaking suspicion that Shun's "debt" he claims to Yuya at the end of chapter six is going to come up in some significant fashion later, and that and terrible ship ideas led to this.

Sometimes, you owe someone, and there never seems to be a chance to pay them back. And other times, the moment comes, and it feels like the most obvious thing in the world to step in.

“Give it up, Phantom! We got you this time!”

Sawatari, no less smug for his first loss against the ‘Phantom’, stands before rows and rows of Leo Corporation forces, hand flicking out his hair dramatically as he points out their target. As if anyone could miss him, backed up against the edge of the building with a calm smile that says he’s not yet as cornered as they think he is. Flanking Sawatari, Sora looks almost bored, licking at his lollipop and watching Yuya from the corner of his eye, while Shun stands with his duel disk ready, poised to strike whenever he needs to. In any other situation, a remarkable combination of duelists. In this one, though, they’re just a backbone to the whole.

Yuya steps back, his heel finding the edge of the building – Leo Corporation’s tower is no short drop, and even in the mottled city night, he can pick out the street lights altogether too far below him. But there’s a reason the company is after him, and it’s with a cheerful wave that he spreads a hand and seemingly conjures a huge paper aeroplane from nothing but a card.

“Well, maybe you _did_ , but…”

He’s cut off by the sound of helicopter blades and a shower of sparks as the hologram vanishes, two dark shapes roaring over the cusp of the building’s edge and whipping up winds fit to crash any frail ship that dares to take off. The grin on Yuya’s face flickers and falls into uncertainty, and he looks to his side as if asking for a solution from somewhere.

_“If you attempt to leave this rooftop, we will apprehend you. Stand down, or we will use force!”_

The tinny megaphone announcement echoes from the sky over the rooftop, and Yuya’s eyes move from his side to the ground, as if he’s considering trying them on for size anyway. He’s halfway to lowering himself towards the edge when a pepper of warning shots rings out and rains against the rim. Nothing fatal, but a reassurance that climbing down isn’t going to get him anywhere except seriously injured _and_ captured to boot. His foot slides back, and he looks over towards the ranks of soldiers surrounding the low-lit crystalline spire. All of them buckle down, gripping shields and batons in preparation. Sawatari, eager like a puppy waiting to please its master, slips on his duel disk with all the confidence of a champion, and Sora, after a moment, shrugs, sighs, and activates his own. Shun, two steps on when it comes to aggression, draws two cards from his deck and lays them out to attack. The air shimmers, and two huge, screeching forms of Napalm Dragonius appear above him, tails lashing and heads searching for prey. His face is set, and when Yuya meets each pair of eyes in turn, he can’t read pity from any of them.

He pulls his hood up, breathes deeply, and turns like this is the walk to his funeral. One-on-one, he’d be unconcerned, but they have him cornered and outnumbered, and Yuto hasn’t offered a solution either. Unseen by the others, the ghostly form moves close to Yuya’s side, eyes darting around like he’s looking for an escape not forthcoming. Yuya looks resigned, but Yuto looks overwhelmed by the idea of being trapped like this, and Yuya almost feels bad having let this happen.

“Alright, you got me. I surr—”

And then one of the great Dragonius birds moves, and the rooftop breaks into panic as one huge tail collapses the front ranks, and the other lashes out to tangle with the blades of the helicopters lurking just beyond the edge. In one smooth motion, Shun steps out from the line, staring at Yuya with all the friendliness of his prey bird namesake.

“Consider this my debt repaid.”

He tosses his head, indicating for Yuya to get the hell off the roof while he still can, and turns to face down the rest of the ranks. The toppled soldiers are murmuring mutinously, some getting their bearings enough to realise what caused their fall, and Sawatari is openly gaping, looking from Shun to Yuya in disbelief. Sora, however, is silent, the ghost of a smile on his face as he makes no move to intervene either way.

“Debt? What—” Yuya starts to question, but there’s a sudden pause as his eyes move to one side, and his expression becomes more attentive and serious until he finally gives one short nod, looks back to Shun for a moment, and then gathers himself and leaps off the roof. A rush of wind heralds his likely escape as the helicopters topple around him and the riders bail out onto their own monsters for fear of a messy drop, and Sawatari finally scrapes his jaw off the ground enough to round on Shun, brandishing his duel disk.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Kurosaki? Whatever ‘debt’ you owed that guy, you’d turn on your own team?”

Shun’s expression is no less firm than it was staring down Yuya, but it screws up into something nearer to anger as he braces himself for a fight. Yellow eyes narrow, and his ragged coat flaps in the breeze like wings, the birds still circling above him.

“You wouldn’t understand. I never joined for this. I came with you all because I wanted a _real_ duel…a serious challenge. What makes you think I’d want your hands on the most satisfying opponent I’ve had in years?”

Sawatari opens his mouth to respond, but a cool voice cuts neatly over him, and the reforming ranks part to allow through the towering figure of Reiji Akaba himself.

“A _serious_ opponent, you say…?” His purple eyes are chilly and menacing beneath the red glasses, and though Shun doesn’t feel fear often, something in him wants to turn tail and make that jump himself rather than fight Reiji. But he grits his teeth, steels himself, and slides the cards on his duel disk back into his deck, activating the automatic shuffler.

“I never back down from a serious duel. If you want to punish me, then _face_ me first!”

His voice rings out more resolute than he’s actually feeling right now, and Reiji’s hard look is replaced by the most disconcerting, out-of-place turn of the mouth Shun’s ever seen. It’s not a smile. Whatever the hell it is, it’s promising nothing but swift regret, but he doesn’t let himself waver as Reiji activates his own disk, selecting a random Action Field with confidence that doesn’t inspire any more of it in Shun.

He’ll fight. He’ll always fight, and never turn his back on a challenge. But even he knows when he’s outmatched.

“Duel!”

It’s less than ten minutes before there’s a broken-up, agonized yell, and the barrier of the Action Field dissipates to allow Shun’s beaten form to be thrown from the building’s edge by the momentum of the last attack, threads of teal hair and the tips of his coat and scarf vanishing from sight as he plummets, senseless, through the cold night air.

Back on the roof, Sawatari and Sora step forward, both staring this time. It’s Sora who recovers enough to break the silence, looking up at Reiji warily.

“Geez, you like to make an example, huh…”

Reiji turns away, expression unreadable as he pushes up his glasses, and simply responds, “Who knows. He might still be of use, whether he wants to be or not.”

Sawatari’s still too floored to talk, and making vague gesticulations along the lines of “what the hell just happened” when there’s a cresting surge of air, and a safe fifty or so metres from the edge of the building, the form of Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon rises up. Yuya, expression somewhere between exhilaration, amusement and what might be disbelief, is crouched in its cupped claws, his arms hooked under the shoulders of a clearly passed-out Shun, who’s dangling a little dangerously from the perch.

“If you’re the boss trying to keep your soldiers loyal, I don’t think you’re doing it right. But I guess he’s my responsibility now anyway, huh?” Brushing aside Reiji for now, Yuya instead winks at Sora and Sawatari. “Don’t look so glum, I’ll take better care of him than your boss just did. But for now…”

From out of his sleeve, he whisks a phantom card, letting the breeze blow it from his fingers as it pops into a puff of glittery, impenetrable smog.

“…The show ends here, ladies and gentlemen!”

The Leo Corporation soldiers start forward almost out of instinct, but there’s nothing they can do, and as Reiji raises a hand, the smog clears to reveal empty air where the dragon was a minute ago. Sora laughs, turning back to the others, but the expression falters as he follows Sawatari’s incredulous stare back up to Reiji’s face.

More specifically, the fleeting smile of a plan gone exactly as expected.

 

Floating in and out of consciousness, it’s hard to catch anything substantial. Unintelligible murmurs just out of earshot, the changing of lights beyond eyelids, and the feeling of weightlessness follow Shun for the next god knows how long, ebbing and rising in intensity as he reaches for the edges of wakefulness, only to slip away again. He can’t even remember what put him in this state, but sometimes, he can feel the weakness of a heart that’s pounded from fear recently, and it makes him wonder until the darkness drags him back in again.

When the fog in his mind finally slips away, it goes slowly. He can feel that he’s lying on something soft, and that his arms are folded across his front, high on his chest. There’s something pressuring the surface he’s on, making his legs shift downwards a little as it caves in, lifts and then caves again with the movement of something, but even that doesn’t snap him into awareness until he feels a hand slide roughly between his jacket and shirt, pushing and probing at the fabric. His eyes snap open to light that makes him squeeze them shut again, and he drives his knees up to try and throw the person off, or at least unbalance them for a kick. But he realises with the motion that they’re bound together and there’s nothing further he can do even as a harsh, bitten-down gasp reaches his ears and he feels someone lose their breath across his face, along with what feels like an entire person’s weight falling on his chest. It’s a miracle he manages to keep his own reaction to that as a gasp of pain when his chest feels like someone took to it with a bat recently.

He opens his eyes again in the shadow of another person’s face – a grey-eyed, slightly surprised-looking boy with hair sticking up and falling across in tall purple spikes. It takes him a moment to recognise the one who dueled Sawatari in Yuya’s place, and while the details of what got him here are starting to trickle back, that’s only raising more questions right now.

“Mmh--!”

His attempt to actually ask them, though, is strangled by something wedged in his mouth, and even as he squirms and protests, he can feel his arms pinned wrist-to-elbow by what feels oddly like electrical cable, and now by the added weight of the other boy. His apparent captor, for his part, simply gives a silent sigh and presses a finger to his mouth, holding up some kind of small device between his fingers. Shun’s seen sound bugs enough times in Leo Corporation’s armouries to recognise one on sight, and though he still struggles and bucks against the bonds, he quiets down. A nod of vague appreciation comes from the other boy, and he goes back to picking at the crevasses of Shun’s coat and shirt, not lingering any longer than he has to, but searching thoroughly enough to comb out any more hidden hardware. Shun hisses in annoyance as another bug is plucked from the inside of his coat, just below the collar, and an apparently blacked-out tracer capsule is spirited out of the folds in his scarf as he jerks and makes some complaint that’s strangled in his mouth at the feeling of fingers against his neck.

With each movement of the search, the other boy seems to get more and more riled up, and his movements at Shun’s neck are much more careless than the ones that started the search, but with one final feel around the inside curve of the scarf, the boy leans over, crushes the bugs and tracer under his fist, and swings his head to one side, expression agitated beyond all belief.

“And _whose_ fault is that, Yuya!? I’m not the one who brought him here without checking he was clean! Honestly, do you _want_ us to get caught?”

There’s a beat of silence, and the boy’s eyes slide back down to Shun, who’s looking at him with the kind of blank stare he’d reserved for Yuya’s shenanigans after their duel, gaze flicking to the apparently empty space he was talking to and then back to him.

“…And now he thinks I’m crazy, too.” He sighs with frustration before leaning down to unhook the hastily-tied scrap of fabric around Shun’s mouth and ease out the wad of material under it, tossing it to one side carelessly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t wake up in the middle of that, but _someone_ forgot to search you for bugs earlier, so I had to make sure you weren’t going to give us away as soon as you came around.”

Shun turns his head to spit onto the concrete beyond the mattress he’s lying on before he bothers to reply. “And who the hell are you? You’re the one who stepped in for Yuya Sakaki in that duel against Sawatari, aren’t you?”

The boy’s eyes widen slightly, like he’s not used to being recognised, but it only takes a second for the expression to clear and him to start working at the messy cable bonds at Shun’s wrists. “I am. My name is Yuto.”

Even as quickly as the cables were tied, the ones that crossed skin leave strong marks as they’re unwound, and Shun can’t quite help a low, pained hiss. Yuto pauses in his gathering up of the unwound cables, a wry glint in his eye.

“You’re not going to beg to be hurt more like you did against Yuya, are you?”

Shun sits up immediately, knocking Yuto back onto his legs, with an expression of mingled fury and humiliation on his face. Hearing it worded like that is _not_ doing Yuto’s first impression on him any favours, and he leans over far enough to snarl at him that Yuto’s practically folded back on himself trying to look him in the eye.

“ _Don’t_ talk about it so…” He tries to find a way to word it, gives up, and restarts. “How the hell do you even know that?”

_“Ah, look Yuto, he likes you!”_ Yuya’s voice rings out in Yuto’s head loud and clear, and he screws up his face in withheld annoyance before giving Shun a flat look and pushing himself back up.

“What did you think Yuya and I did, when we switched out in that duel? When I’m in control, he’s still here. When he’s in control, I’m still here. We’re two faces of the same person. I was with him for that whole duel. If I’m being honest, I’m surprised Yuya chose to help you after that.” Yuto’s gaze darts to the side and his brow furrows for a moment, but before long, it’s back to Shun again, almost confused now. “I don’t know why you chose to help us, either. I would’ve thought you’d believe in survival of the fittest, with how out of your mind with rage you got at the idea of a non-serious duel.”

_“Eh, Yuto, you’re being kinda rude…”_

With an indignant huff of breath, Shun looks away, his face scrunched with disdain. “Don’t act like I was being _kind_. I owed Sakaki a debt from our last duel. Besides, seeing an opponent like him taken by Leo Corporation? What a waste.”

Yuto’s head cocks slightly, like it’s a strange train of thought to follow, but his nod is firm and understanding. “Coming from you, that makes sense. Yuya was the one who insisted we stay to make sure you got out alright anyway, so I’ll leave that between you.”

There’s a silence, and Yuto apparently realises he’s still sitting in Shun’s lap, so he shuffles backwards to make quick work of the ties at his ankles. As he’s looping up the cable again, he looks up, an expression of slight curiosity on his face.

“So…you’re an Xyz user too, right?”

_“Hey, Yuto, come on, don’t be so boring!”_

Shun’s about to reply when Yuto folds over, holding his head in his hands with a cry of “Yuya, shut up! Stop it!” There’s no time to even extend a hand before his head bows out of sight under the hood and then springs up again, purple hair replaced with green and red and grey eyes replaced with scarlet.

“Sorry, Yuto’s not really a people person, huh?” Yuya says, completely ignoring the taken-aback look on Shun’s face in favour of tossing the cables in his hands away onto the concrete. “I guess he was right about the bugs, but he’s always looking out for stuff like that anyway.”

The complete conversation tangent makes Shun blink, but he breathes out a second later in clear frustration before levelling a glare at Yuya. “What did you just do?”

Yuya looks completely nonplussed, frowning at Shun like he’s just said the most confusing thing he’s ever heard. “We switched, remember? Yuto just explained it to you.”

“If that’s normal, then why did he refuse?”

Yuya shrugs, pursing his lips petulantly. “Yuto’s kinda difficult sometimes. It doesn’t actually hurt him or anything, going back in, but sometimes I pretty much have to take the wheel off him.”

_“What do you mean,_ I’m _difficult?”_ is Yuto’s peevish reply, and Yuya laughs a little, rubbing his hair as his gaze moves over to Yuto. Shun’s follows, though he can only see blank space.

“Well, you always take things so seriously it’s hard to get you to just play along, right? And you’re so narrow-minded about my Entertainment Dueling…”

Sensing some kind of one-sided argument coming on, Shun tunes Yuya out for a moment to take stock of his surroundings. The makeshift bed he’s on is to one side of a huge, worn-out warehouse with a flooded bottom, a complex computer system taking centre stage on the small platform that seems to make up the bulk of the room. The sound of rushing water echoes off the airy walls as vents pour in from the edges of the space, but it’s not loud enough to overtake the whirrs and blips of the computer system, or the continued drone of Yuya apparently squabbling with Yuto.

“Where are we?”

Yuya breaks stride of his rebuttal to Yuto completely, blinking and staring at Shun like he forgot he was even there. It takes him another second to realise that a question’s been asked, and another to register what it is, but when he does, he stands up grandly and spreads his arms to the open space.

“Ah, it’s the Phantom’s hideout, of course! You’re only the second person to see it, so that’s cool, isn’t it?” It’s as enthusiastic as anyone could be about a place like that, but the lack of anything resembling an impressed look on Shun’s face makes Yuya deflate instead, a pouty expression coming over him. “Aw, come on, at this rate I’m going to be outnumbered by sourpusses like you and Yuto…”

He stops, like he forgot something else, and then pulls himself up straight again with a more positive expression. “Oh yeah, you never actually told us your name during that duel, did you? What with all the yelling about serious duels and stuff…”

Shun looks like he’s about to start a fight all over again with Yuya’s attitude, but he reminds himself that really, he owes another debt having been saved like this. The least he can do is answer the questions, and he pushes himself up properly to do it, wincing as his bruised body shifts.

“Shun Kurosaki.” He gives Yuya the kind of glare that dares him to use the first name upon pain of death, and the hint is taken with an awkward laugh and a wave of the hand.

“Kurosaki it is, then…but what—”

Looking to one side, Yuya breaks off again and strikes up a huffy, contrary kind of expression, frowning at the air. Finally, he caves with a “Fiiiine,” pulls his hood down, and when it comes up again, it’s Yuto’s more serious face that greets Shun.

“What Yuya _meant_ to say just now was that you just made a serious choice. You didn’t just decide to help us, you decided to turn your back on everything you had with Leo Corporation, and they’re probably going to be hunting for you now too.” Yuto looks back in the direction of the city, as if he can see it and all its movements through the walls. “So, what are you going to do now?”

Shun moves to stand, to give a firm answer like he had before, but his legs don’t want to take his weight, and his head swims when he tries to stand. His mouth is open with nothing coming out when he feels Yuto’s smaller hand push him back down onto the mattress, the stoic face marred with concern.

“Easy. I’m not asking you to decide right now.”

Shun grabs at the hand, trying to shove it away and sit up again, but there are spots of light behind his eyes and he can’t seem to get up the energy or aim to do it right.

“I don’t need—” He lifts his head only to hit it against the mattress in obstinate anger, left with so little else he can do right now. “I’m not… _weak…!_ ”

“Then don’t act like such a child.” Yuto replies, sighing again and dropping to one knee. “Honestly, I already have to deal with Yuya being like that. Admitting you’re hurt isn’t weak, it’s just common sense.”

Shun rears up slightly, like he’s about to punch Yuto, but all he manages is snagging one of the front tails of Yuto’s coat and dragging him closer. There’s a snarl on his face that says he’s about to bawl him out for insulting him or thinking he’s so much better, but as he looks over Yuto’s face, there’s nothing to imply that at all. His expression is flat and calm, and Shun’s aggression only nets him a raised eyebrow, as if questioning whether he’s really going to sink that low.

He lets his hand drop and rolls to one side, resting his throbbing head. But after a moment, his eye shifts back up to Yuto, who’s still standing and watching him.

“…You were saying something about Xyz users earlier.”

It’s as close to an open admission of defeat as he’s going to come, and he watches in silence as Yuto comes around the mattress and sits down cross-legged, reaching back to pull out his own deck and, after a moment of hesitation, lay out a few of the monsters on the concrete.

“I don’t know how familiar you are with Trap Monsters—”

Shun cuts him off. “I know enough. Keep going.”

“Alright. Well, you used Napalm Dragonius as a starting move, I normally have Shade Brigandine…”

Shun isn’t quite aware of when he starts to slip off, between asking Yuto how reliable he finds trying to put Level Three and Four Trap Monsters in the same deck and trying to explain that Blade Burner Falcon _is_ worth the huge risks of using it, shared duel philosophy or not. But before long, the buzz in his ears and the weight of his eyes steals over him, and Yuto breaks off a brief tangent about Tomb Shield’s respective uses as a monster and a Graveyard Trap if it gets taken off the field to look down at him with what might be a small smile.

“Don’t worry about it. There’s always tomorrow.”

His form seems to waver before Shun’s fading vision, and suddenly it’s Yuya talking instead, shooting him a grin and a wink.

“I’ll make sure we understand each other when we duel again, okay? All of us. Who knows, maybe you can make Yuto enjoy himself for once.”

The bit of him that half wants to punch Yuya for standing so staunchly in opposition to his beliefs is overridden for that moment by the part that let him smile in the wake of their first duel, and as his eyes slip shut again, there’s the shadow of another amused look on his face, and his breath comes out in a thin, exhausted laugh.

“You really believe in that ridiculous kind of duel, don’t you…?”

Yuya simply gives him a knowing smile, like he knows something more changed during their last fight. “Yeah, but you don’t _really_ think it’s ridiculous, do you?”

Shun cracks open one eye, though within the next instant, it’s trying to close again. “What…makes you say that?”

Yuya leans over to him like he’s telling some sort of big secret, and his grin is infectious enough to ground the city in a day. “I saved you because you saved Yuzu. So what did you _really_ owe me from that duel, huh?”

There’s no time to answer before Shun’s eye slips shut and he slumps into sleep, but Yuya only laughs and ruffles the older boy’s hair a little.

“See, Yuto, I told you he was interesting. You didn’t even want to be his friend before, did you?”

Across the other side of the bed, Yuto’s insubstantial hand rests on Shun’s shoulder, in what would be a firm reassurance if he was in control of their body right now. He tries not to let Yuya see, but it’s difficult to miss the three-parts amused, one-part exasperated smile that comes to his face in that moment.

_“Fine, you win this one, Yuya. As long as he doesn’t ask us to hurt him again.”_

Yuya looks mock offended at the thought, pointing at Yuto suspiciously. “Hey, I’m the one who made us stay and save him. Why would I do it, even if you would?”

_“…You really think I would?”_

Yuya looks down to Shun’s sleeping form, face as placid as it had been when he’d first caught him from that floating umbrella, and back up to Yuto, who he hasn’t seen smile this easily in months. And, he supposes he should be looking at himself as well, for being the one who wanted him here in the first place.

With a laugh and a defeated huff, he closes his eyes, letting Yuto switch into his place with fingers tangled in winged green hair. His counterpart looks a little thrown, but soon enough, the expression softens, and he wriggles his fingers in a less practiced mirror of Yuya's affectionate ruffle.

_“No, Yuto. I don’t think either of us would.”_


End file.
